Brown Girl in London

Rise Festival

Yesterday was the Rise Festival at Finsbury Park and it was fantastic. It was a free all-day music festival with the aim of promoting an end to racism - always a good cause. It started around 12pm and HD and I made our way down around 3pm. I have never seen this area more crowded, there were so many people milling about, sitting on blankets with picnics, and everyone was having a good time.

Crowd shot

Entertainment-wise there were various stages playing different types of music. The Urban Music stage was mostly hip hop, spoken word, and rap. The Cuba stage was really a tent playing, what else, Cuban music. There was a stage for comedy and another one called the Mela Stage which was mainly East Indian music acts. The main stage was called Rise and that's where the majority of the people were.

Rise Stage

Of all the acts listed we only knew one, Common, and HD really likes him so we went to check out his performance at 4:45pm at the Rise stage. It was great and luckily they had two massive screens so that short people like us could see what was going on. That's another thing, there was tons of tall people all over the place and they all seemed to want to stand right in front of me!

Common

Anyway, after that we walked to the other end of the park, left through the exit, and sat on a hill watching the goings-on (this was down by the Urban Music stage). It was a bit quieter and less crowded and we both enjoy just people watching. Here are some dudes who apparently didn't mind our people watching - either that or they coulnd't hold it any longer - hee hee.

Doesn't need any explanation

After our break, we went back and were ready to leave. But first HD wanted to get a Jamaica flag and Trinidad & Tobago flag from one of the vendors so she's ready for the Nottingham Carnival in August. As we were going there we walked past the Mela Stage and saw an elderly Indian lady performing some fantastic Indian dancing. So we stayed to watch and after her act was done this amazing DJ came on and played some of the best music I've heard since I've been here. His name is Nerm, funny name, but both HD and I were like, wow! The crowd loved it too, they couldn't get enough of the music. It was big mass of arms, legs, hands, heads - everyone jumping around and having a great time! He's playing next weekend at some Factory club and we're thinking of checking it out.

DJ Nerm

After his set was done this other act came on called Bollywood Brass, totally not my thing and it was just too gimmicky, so we went to get HD's flags. Then back again hoping to hear the DJ come on again, which he did. He played until it was time to shut down and the rest of us just danced in the field.

Random people pic

posted by RC @ 11:00 AM